


good earth

by doomcountry



Category: The Sisters Brothers (2018)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, M/M, No Plot/Plotless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:55:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22321285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomcountry/pseuds/doomcountry
Summary: Here you are, John, says a little voice.
Relationships: John Morris/Hermann Kermit Warm
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	good earth

Eli Sisters is digging a grave.

The dead men know it. Where they lie together, tumbled on the ground, placed there with all gentleness, where their bodies are touching, they can hear him digging, the crush of the shovel in the dirt, digging as if to stop would be the end of him.

It is early afternoon above the dead men. A silky, twining sun, thickening clouds, passing shades. Their ruined bodies do not move, their eyes closed, their lips gently parted, blue and dry.

Eli Sisters is digging a grave; somewhere, Charlie Sisters is carving something, with his one good hand, into a piece of wood. The dead men lie together, their faces turned toward each other. They might be sleeping, bathing in the sun, were it not for their blackened, blistered skin, their ceaseless unmoving. The day passing in arcs over and around them, in stilted shudders, in flickers.

_Here you are, John,_ says a little voice.

A beetle, shiny, arsenic green, crawling up and out over Hermann Kermit Warm’s lower lip, from inside his mouth.

It rests there for a moment, its antennae probing with curiosity at the new sunlight, the still, heavy air. Beyond the sound of Eli’s digging, and the breath of horses, and the faint occasional breeze in canvas, there is no noise, not a whisper of life, not even the faintest call of a distant bird.

The beetle crawls, with dignity, down Warm’s chin.

 _Here you are,_ says the little white moth at the corner of John Morris’ mouth.

They regard each other, the beetle and the moth. The moth is soft and pale like new milk. Its wings flicker every now and then, testing the atmosphere. Gold dust shakes from its back, its velvet legs.

 _He’s digging a grave for us, I think,_ says the beetle.

 _I think you’re right,_ says the moth.

 _I wish he hadn’t moved me away into the tent,_ says the beetle, with sorrow. _I wish you hadn’t asked him to._

 _I wanted you to die in the shade. Not in the dirt, in the heat,_ says the moth. It crawls across John Morris’ face to settle on his cheek, where the tiniest stirring of the air lifts its wings a fraction.

_You’re very kind, John._

_And we’re here now._

_Yes, we are._

From beneath the collar of Warm’s white shirt a ladybug is marching, up and over his throat. Another moth, as white as the first, eases its little head out from the darkness of Morris’ open mouth. A bee follows it, greenish and splendid.

 _What now?_ says a slate-blue aphid, appearing like a tear against Morris’ eyelid, beneath his still brown lashes.

 _I don’t know,_ says another ladybug. Its wings shift apart, black, glossy, lucent. _We lie here together._

 _I don’t much like the idea of being buried,_ says the bee on Morris’ chin.

_I don’t either. It’s a kindness, though, that he’s doing us._

_Yes._

_What would you rather, John?_

_Well,_ says the gently twining sprout growing out now from his parted mouth, _if we’re dead, I’d like to be in the sun for as long as I can._

 _I don’t care much about what happens,_ says Warm’s answering sprout, unfolding gently over his lips, pale green and healthy and newborn, little leaves peeling off and opening their faces to the sky, _but I’d like to stay with you._

The leaves broaden and flatten. Still Eli Sisters is digging. Milkweed blossoms swell and open silently, pale and pinkish, rising upward in concerted motion toward the thin, hot sun. Their shade casts softly on Warm’s face. From Morris’ poor and ruined skull clusters of baby-blue-eyes are forming, frothy and delicate, spilling out in easy chorus onto the bloody ground beneath.

 _I wish you hadn’t died like that,_ say the milkweed’s mournful leaves, lifting cautiously in the air. _I wish I could have held your hand._

 _Hold it now,_ say the bees swarming curious in Morris’ upturned palm, where it has fallen between them.

Shoots grow downward past Warm’s throat, tangling, pale and blind, until they find purchase. They weave between Morris’ fingers, never too tightly. They uplift heavy crisp-white morning glories, broad orange California poppies, basking in the brittle heat.

 _There,_ say the bees. Their legs and wings are coated with gold dust, like clutches of pollen. They hum and rise, touching gently the petals, landing and taking off again, coy.

Warm exhales chamise. His body slowly coming apart. Bones to driftwood, flesh to the lovely wings of butterflies, the cracks in his dry and bluish lips deepening to gold dust that drifts and falls and blows away. All of him flowers, lifting their faces, chaparral and dusky purple lupine. Morris’ body, too, turning softly. To leaves, to gold, to moths.

 _I love you dearly,_ breathes the milkweed, the chamise, white sighing, green roots reaching out forlorn. _I love you very much._ The California poppies, the baby-blue-eyes breathing back, _I love you dearly, too. Come closer._

Far away, someone says, “Eli.”

The miner’s lettuce laughs. The ladybugs laugh, too. The red maids and buck brush. The goldenrod and black sage. The beetles, arsenic green.

 _Oh,_ says the deerweed.

 _Let’s be a garden,_ says the susurrus of liveforever. _I can think of nothing finer than to be a garden with you._

There is very little left of them; from underneath them grass is growing, thick and wild, between the stalks of bush sunflower and Turkish rugging. They sink, into glimmering dust like sand, into borer beetles and green dragonflies that shimmer like jewels. Their roots weave down toward the poison river and meet the water and swell, grow stronger, flourish.

 _John,_ whisper the blooms, shaking in the wind, shivering to life, spooling upward in flutters and twitches. From their heavy unmoving, life waking up, colorful, tender. _Hermann,_ the same blooms reply. _I’m glad you are here with me,_ they say, sighing into breaths of wind, exhaling butterflies, their wings catching and bending the sunlight, like music. Somewhere far away, the brothers standing in quiet wonder, unspeaking.

 _I wish we could have had more time,_ says the garden.

 _We do,_ says the good earth. _All that there is, and more._


End file.
